OS and hardware upgrade

October 26, 2010 5:04:35 AM

Time to upgrade to Win 7 however I have a bit of a dilemma! Along with wanting to upgrading the OS from XP Home to Win 7 Home Premium 64, I also want to perform a hardware upgrade as well which will include new Motherboard, CPU, RAM and Hard Disc. My question is do I upgrade the hardware first then re-activate XP? This will most likely require a Win XP Repair install to get the computer working, or at the very most re installing XP all together. Or do I perform the OS upgrade first then upgrade the hardware.

Just to note that only have 1Gb of RAM installed with my current XP hardware configuration which does not meet the min requirements for Win 7 64bit

Does XP have to be activated to upgrade to Win 7 or just present on the system?

One more question...if I format Win 7 down the road (use to do this about once a year to clean out the bugs in XP) do I have to install XP again to install Win 7 upgrade?

Thanks

More about : hardware upgrade

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Saga Lout

October 26, 2010 4:47:32 PM

society misfit said:

Time to upgrade to Win 7 however I have a bit of a dilemma! Along with wanting to upgrading the OS from XP Home to Win 7 Home Premium 64, I also want to perform a hardware upgrade as well which will include new Motherboard, CPU, RAM and Hard Disc. My question is do I upgrade the hardware first then re-activate XP? This will most likely require a Win XP Repair install to get the computer working, or at the very most re installing XP all together. Or do I perform the OS upgrade first then upgrade the hardware.
Thanks

I'm pretty certain your W7 DVD will install to a clean disk and ask for proof of a valid upgradeable product along the way. If I'm right, you could take out the hard drive and make the hardware changes then go straight to the W7 install DVD but hang on for a while until someoen else confirms this.

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Jonmor68

Windows 7 Authority

October 26, 2010 6:11:54 PM

When you upgrade from XP you must do a clean install by booting the W7 disk and choosing Custom instalation, it is at this time that Windows validates your upgrade eligability.
You can use the W7 disk tools to create & delete partitions and format if required. Do not format the disk beforehand.

Use the W7 Easy Transfer Wizard to save your files and settings.
To use the W7 Easy Transfer Wizard:
Browse to the DVD drive on your computer and click migsetup.exe in the Support\Migwiz directory.

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